A good film can
make all the difference, transport us to another place, visually and
emotionally - What's wrong with that. No drugs, no alcohol, just input,
from a script writer, via a director and cast. Mmmmmm.

For
our money Leo delivers great performances in almost every role
he's every played. Okay, there have been one or two that were
middle of the road in his early career, but everyone had to
learn their craft somehow. You can expect to be entertained.
He also puts his money where his mouth is on serious issues,
unrelated to his acting.

His
name (allegedly) derives from his German mother Irmalin's having
experienced a sudden kick from her unborn boy while enjoying a
DaVinci painting at the Uffizi
museum! In the year following his birth, she and his Italian father George were divorced. He
grew up in Echo Park, then a particularly seedy,
drug-dominated area of Los
Angeles. At five he appeared on his
favorite TV show, 'Romper Room,' and was nearly thrown off for
misbehaving!

Leonardo
Di Caprio

After
a string of commercials, educational films ('Mickey's Safety
Club'), occasional parts in TV series, a debut film role as
Josh in 'Critters 3' (1991), a continuing role as the homeless
boy Luke in the TV series 'Growing Pains,' he got his
break-through part as Toby in 'This Boy's Life' (1993),
co-starring with Robert De Niro and Ellen Barkin. The part led
the New York Film Critics and the National Society of Film
Critics to name him runner-up for Best Supporting Actor.

DiCaprio, an only child, was born in Los Angeles, California. His mother, Irmelin (née Indenbirken), is a former legal secretary; born in Germany, she moved with her family from Oer-Erkenschwick in the Ruhr to the U.S. during the 1950s. His father, George DiCaprio, is an underground comic artist and producer and distributor of comic books. DiCaprio's father is of half
Italian (from the Naples area) and half German (from Bavaria) descent. DiCaprio's maternal grandfather, Wilhelm Indenbirken, was German. His maternal grandmother, Helene Indenbirken (1915–2008), a German citizen, was born as Yelena Smirnova in
Russia.

DiCaprio's parents met while attending college and subsequently moved to Los Angeles.
His parents
divorced when he was a year old and he lived mostly with his mother. The two lived in several Los Angeles neighborhoods, such as Echo Park, and at 1874 Hillhurst Avenue, Los Feliz district (which was later converted into a local public library), while his mother worked several jobs to support them. He attended Seeds Elementary
School and graduated from John Marshall High School a few blocks away, after attending the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies for four years. DiCaprio spent part of his childhood in Germany with his maternal grandparents, Wilhelm and Helene. He speaks German fluently.

1996–2001

In 1996, DiCaprio appeared opposite Claire Danes in Baz Luhrmann's film Romeo + Juliet, an abridged modernization of William Shakespeare's romantic tragedy of the same name which retained the original Shakespearean dialogue. The project achieved a worldwide box office take of $147 million.

Later that year, he starred in Jerry Zaks' family drama Marvin's Room, reuniting with Robert De Niro. Based on Scott McPherson's screenplay adaptation of his own 1991 stage play of the same name, the film revolves around two sisters, played by Meryl Streep and Diane Keaton, who are reunited through tragedy after 17 years of estrangement. DiCaprio portrayed the character of Hank, Streep's troubled son, who has been committed to a mental asylum for setting
fire to his mother's house.

In 1997, DiCaprio starred in James Cameron's Titanic (1997) as twenty-year-old Jack Dawson, a penniless Wisconsin man who wins two tickets for the third-class on the ill-fated
RMS Titanic. DiCaprio initially refused to portray the character but was eventually encouraged to pursue the role by Cameron, who strongly believed in his acting ability. Against expectations, the film went on to become the highest-grossing film to date (it was surpassed in 2010 by Cameron's film Avatar), grossing more than $1.843
billion in box-office receipts worldwide, and transformed DiCaprio into a commercial movie superstar, resulting in fan worship among teenage girls and young women in general that became known as "Leo-Mania". More than 200 fans contacted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to protest his not being nominated for the 70th Academy
Awards. He was nominated for other high-profile awards, including a second Golden Globe nomination. Upon the success of Titanic, DiCaprio stated in 2000: "I have no connection with me during that whole Titanic phenomenon and what my face became around the world [...] I'll never reach that state of popularity again, and I don't expect to. It's not something I'm going to try to achieve either."

The following year, DiCaprio made a self-mocking cameo appearance in Woody Allen's caustic satire of the fame industry, Celebrity (1998). That year, he also starred in the dual roles of the villainous King Louis XIV and his secret, sympathetic twin brother Philippe in Randall Wallace's The
Man in the Iron Mask, based on the same-titled 1939 film. Despite receiving a rather mixed to negative response, the film became a box office success, grossing
US$180 million internationally. Though DiCaprio's performance was generally well-received, with Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman writing that "the shockingly androgynous DiCaprio looks barely old enough to be playing anyone with hormones, but he's a fluid and instinctive actor, with the face of a mischievous angel," he was awarded a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screen Couple for both incarnations the following year.

DiCaprio's next project was the drama film The Beach (2000), an adaption of Alex Garland's same-titled 1996 novel. He played an
American backpacking tourist looking for the perfect way of life in a secret island commune in the Gulf of
Thailand. Budgeted at $US50 million, the film became a financial success, grossing $US144 million worldwide, but as with DiCaprio's previous project, the film was largely panned by critics. Todd McCarthy of Variety noted that "Richard [DiCaprio's role] is too much the American Everyman and not enough of a well-defined individual to entirely capture one's interest and imagination, and DiCaprio, while perfectly watchable, does not endow him with the quirks or distinguishing marks to make this man from nowhere a dimensional character." The next year, he was nominated for another
Razzie Award for his work on the film.

2002–2007

DiCaprio's first film of 2002 was the biographical crime drama film Catch Me If You Can, based on the life of Frank Abagnale Jr., who, before his 19th birthday, used his charm, confidence, and several different personas, to make millions in the 1960s writing bad checks. Directed by Steven Spielberg, the film was shot in 147 different locations in only 52 days, making it "the most adventurous, super-charged movie-making" DiCaprio had experienced yet. Catch Me If You Can received favourable reviews and proved to be an international success, becoming Dicaprio's highest-grossing film since Titanic with a total of US$351.1 million worldwide. Roger Ebert praised his performance, and noted that while "DiCaprio, who in recent films [...] has played dark and troubled characters, is breezy and charming here, playing a boy who discovers what he is good at, and does it." The following year, DiCaprio received his third Golden Globe nomination for his work on the film.

Also in 2002, DiCaprio appeared in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York, a historical film set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of New York City. Director Scorsese initially struggled selling his idea of realizing the film until DiCaprio became interested in playing protagonist Amsterdam Vallon, a young leader of the Irish faction, and thus,
Miramax Films got involved with financing the project. Nonetheless production on the film was plagued by blown-out budgets and producer-director squabbles, resulting in a marathon eight-month shoot and, at US$103 million, the most expensive film Scorsese had ever made. Upon its release, Gangs of New York became a financial and critical success however. DiCaprio's acting was well-received but remained overshadowed by Daniel Day-Lewis' performance among most critics.

Forging a collaboration with Scorsese, the two paired again for a biopic of the eccentric and obsessive American film director and aviation pioneer
Howard Hughes in
The Aviator (2004). Centering on Hughes' life from the late 1920s to 1947, DiCaprio initially developed the project with Michael Mann, who decided against directing it after back-to-back film biographies in Ali and The Insider. The actor eventually pitched John Logan's script to Scorsese, who quickly signed on to direct. Altogether, DiCaprio reportedly spent more than a year and a half in preparation for the film which was not necessarily shot in continuity because of actors and locations schedules. The Aviator became a critical and financial success. DiCaprio received rave reviews for his performance and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, also receiving another Academy Award nomination.

In 2006, DiCaprio starred in both Blood Diamond and The Departed. In Edward Zwick's war film Blood Diamond, he starred as a diamond smuggler from Rhodesia who is involved in the Sierra Leone Civil War. The film itself received generally favorable reviews, and DiCaprio was praised for the authenticity of his
South African Afrikaner accent, known as a difficult accent to imitate. In Scorsese's The Departed he played the role of Billy Costigan, a state trooper working undercover in an
Irish Mob in Boston. Highly anticipated, the film was released to overwhelmingly positive reviews and became one of the highest-rated wide release films of 2006. Budgeted at US$90 million, it also emerged as DiCaprio and Scorsese's highest-grossing collaboration to date, easily beating The Aviator´s previous record of US$213.7 million. DiCaprio's performance in The Departed was applauded by critics and earned him a Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor. The same year, both the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild nominated DiCaprio twice in the Best Actor category for both of his 2006 features, and in addition, DiCaprio earned his third Academy Award nomination for Blood Diamond.
2008–2012

In 2008, DiCaprio starred in Body of Lies, a spy film based on the novel of the same name by David Ignatius, set in context of the Middle East and the War on Terror, telling the story of three men battling a terrorist organization, and each other. Directed by
Ridley Scott, DiCaprio dyed his hair brown and wore brown contacts for the role, which he chose to pursue because he considered it a throwback to political films of the 1970s such as The Parallax View (1974) and Three Days of the
Condor (1975). The film received mixed reviews from critics, and at a budget of US$67.5 million, became a moderate box office success, grossing US$115 million worldwide.

The same year, DiCaprio reunited with Kate Winslet to film the drama Revolutionary Road (2008), directed by Winslet's then-husband Sam Mendes. As both actors had been reluctant to make romantic films similar to Titanic, it was Winslet who suggested that both should work with her on a film adaptation of the 1961 novel of the same name by Richard Yates after reading the script by Justin Haythe, knowing that plot had little in common with the 1997 blockbuster. Once DiCaprio agreed to do the film, it went almost immediately into production. He noted that he saw his character as "unheroic" and "slightly cowardly" and that he was "willing to be just a product of his environment." Portraying a couple in a failing
marriage in the 1950s, DiCaprio and Winslet watched period videos promoting life in the suburbs to prepare themselves for Revolutionary Road, which eventually earned them favorable reviews. For his portrayal DiCaprio garnered his seventh Golden Globes nomination.

DiCaprio continued his collaborative streak with Scorsese in the 2010 psychological thriller film Shutter Island (2010), based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane. He played U.S. Marshal Edward "Teddy" Daniels, who is investigating a psychiatric facility located on an island and comes to question his own sanity. The film grossed $294 million and became Scorsese's highest-grossing film worldwide.

Also in 2010, DiCaprio starred in director Christopher Nolan's science-fiction film Inception. Inspired by the experience of lucid dreaming and dream incubation, DiCaprio portrays the character of Dom Cobb, an "extractor" who enters the dreams of others to obtain information that is otherwise inaccessible. Cobb is promised a chance to regain his old life in exchange for planting an idea in a corporate target's mind. DiCaprio, the first actor to be cast in the film, was "intrigued by this concept — this dream-heist notion and how this character's gonna unlock his dreamworld and ultimately affect his real life." Released to critical acclaim, the film grossed over $825 million worldwide. In July of the same year, it was announced that DiCaprio had pulled out of a Viking movie to be directed by
Mel Gibson amid controversy over Gibson's rage-fueled rant tapes and domestic violence probe.

In 2011, DiCaprio starred alongside Armie Hammer and Naomi Watts in
Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar, a biopic about J. Edgar Hoover. Written by Dustin Lance Black, the film focuses on the career of the
FBI director from the Palmer Raids onwards, including an examination of his private life as an alleged closeted homosexual. Reviews towards the film were mostly mixed, with many critics commending DiCaprio's performance but feeling that, overall, the film lacked coherence. Roger Ebert praised DiCaprio's performance as a "fully-realized, subtle and persuasive performance, hinting at more than Hoover ever revealed, perhaps even to himself."

In 2012, DiCaprio starred as villainous Calvin Candie in Quentin Tarantino spaghetti western, Django Unchained. The film received positive reviews from critics and earned DiCaprio his ninth nomination from the Golden Globes. Django Unchained grossed $424 million worldwide.

2013 – 2014

DiCaprio's next film was The Great Gatsby again with Baz Luhrmann (who filmed with him Romeo + Juliet in 1996), a big screen adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel, also starring Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire; the film was released on May 10, 2013. It received mixed reviews from critics; however, DiCaprio's portrayal as Jay Gatsby was praised by critics. Critic Rafer Guzman of Newsday praised DiCaprio by stating, "As for Leonardo DiCaprio, he is now the Gatsby to beat. Despite a borderline comedic entrance
- haloed by fireworks and accompanied by Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue"—DiCaprio nails this maddeningly enigmatic character. He's as tough as Alan Ladd in '49, as suave as Redford in '74, but also vulnerable, touching, funny, a faker, a human. You hear it all in Gatsby's favorite phrase, "old sport," a verbal tic that stumped other actors. It's a tremendous, hard-won performance." Matt Zoller Seitz of Roger Ebert.com described his performance as Gatsby as "The movie's greatest and simplest special effect," and states "This is an iconic performance
- maybe his career best." The film grossed $348 million worldwide and became Luhrmann's highest grossing film.

DiCaprio reunited with Scorsese for the fifth time in The Wolf of
Wall Street, a true story based on the life of stockbroker Jordan Belfort, who was arrested in the late 1990s for securities fraud and money laundering. Filming began on August 8, 2012, in New York, and the film was released on December 25, 2013. The role earned him a
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy and his fourth Academy Award nomination. In January 2013, DiCaprio said he was going to take a long break from acting and would "fly around the world doing good for the environment."

PERSONAL LIFE

DiCaprio is a close friend of actor Tobey Maguire, whom he met while auditioning for the Parenthood series in 1990, and is a longtime friend of both fellow actors Kevin Connolly and Lukas Haas, and Titanic and Revolutionary Road co-star
Kate Winslet. He was a childhood friend of actor Christopher Pettiet.

His romantic relationships have been widely covered in the media. DiCaprio dated model Kristen Zang on-and-off for several years, and British model and socialite Emma Miller. In 2000, he met Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen with whom he had an on-and-off relationship until their separation in 2005. DiCaprio began a relationship with model Bar Refaeli in November 2005 after meeting her at a Las Vegas party thrown for members of U2. In the course of their trip to
Israel in March 2007, the couple met with Israeli president Shimon Peres and visited Refaeli's hometown of Hod HaSharon. The relationship was on hold for a period of six months starting in June 2009; in early 2010, the romance was rekindled. In May 2011, it was reported that the couple had ended their
romantic
relationship. In August 2011, it was reported that he was in a relationship with actress Blake Lively since mid-May. They ended their relationship in October 2011. DiCaprio dated model Erin Heatherton from December 2011 to October 2012. Since May 2013, DiCaprio has been dating German model Toni Garrn.

DiCaprio owns a home in Los Angeles and an apartment in Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan. In 2009, he bought an island off mainland
Belize on which he is planning to create an eco-friendly resort.

In 2005, DiCaprio's face was seriously injured when model Aretha Wilson hit him over the head with a broken bottle at a Hollywood party. After pleading guilty in 2010, Wilson was sentenced to
prison for two years.

In 2014, he purchased the original Dinah Shore residence designed by mid-century modern architect Donald Wexler in Palm Springs.

PHILANTHROPY

A committed environmentalist, DiCaprio has received praise from environmental groups for his activism. He owns an electric
Tesla Roadster, a Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid, and a
Toyota Prius. He has also installed solar panels on his house. In an interview with Ukula about his film the 11th Hour, DiCaprio cited global warming as "the number-one environmental challenge".

At the 2007 Oscar ceremony, DiCaprio and former Vice President
Al Gore appeared to announce that the Academy Awards had incorporated environmentally intelligent practices throughout the planning and production processes, thus affirming their commitment to the environment, and on July 7, 2007, DiCaprio presented at the American leg of Live
Earth. In 2010, his environmental work earned DiCaprio a nomination for the VH1 Do Something Award. The awards show, produced by VH1, is dedicated to honoring people who do good and is powered by Do Something, a New York-based organization that aims to empower and inspire young people.

In 1998, DiCaprio and his mother donated $35,000 for a "Leonardo DiCaprio
Computer Center" at the Los Feliz branch of the Los Angeles Public Library, the site of his childhood home. It was rebuilt after the 1994 Northridge
earthquake and opened in early 1999. During the filming of Blood
Diamond, DiCaprio worked with 24 orphaned children from the SOS Children's Village in Maputo, Mozambique, and was said to be extremely touched by his interactions with the children. In 2010, he donated $1
million to relief efforts in Haiti after the earthquake.

During the 2004 presidential election, DiCaprio campaigned and donated to John Kerry's presidential bid. The FEC showed DiCaprio gave $2,300 to
Barack Obama's presidential campaign in the 2008 election, the maximum contribution an individual can give in that election cycle, and $5,000 to Obama's 2012 campaign.

In November 2010, DiCaprio donated $1 million to the Wildlife Conservation Society at Russia's tiger summit. DiCaprio's persistence in reaching the event after encountering two plane delays caused then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to describe him as a "muzhik" or "real man". In 2011, DiCaprio joined the Animal Legal Defense Fund's campaign to free Tony, a tiger who has spent the last decade at the
Tiger Truck Stop in Grosse Tete, Louisiana. DiCaprio is an activist for gay rights; in April 2013, he donated $61,000 to GLAAD, an organization which promotes the image of LGBT people in the media.

Washington, DC – Oceana, the largest international advocacy group to work on behalf of the world’s oceans, announced a $3 million grant today from the Leonardo DiCaprio foundation aimed at protecting threatened ocean habitat and keystone marine species such as sharks. The foundation’s grant will also support Oceana’s work to advocate for responsible fishing measures, including the effort to ban
California drift gillnets.

“The foundation and Leo’s support for campaigns like our efforts to ban the drift gillnets in California will help Oceana win more protections for countless sharks and other marine animals and for ocean habitats in the Pacific and Arctic – which include some of the most productive ocean places in the world,” said Oceana CEO Andy Sharpless. “The net impact will be a much more abundant and biodiverse ocean that has many millions more sharks and critical and amazing marine animals, wilder and more pristine ocean habitats and oceans that can feed over a billion people – many of them hungry – a healthy seafood meal each day.”

“Protecting our planet’s oceans and the marine species that call it home is one of the most pressing sustainability crises facing humanity today and a moral imperative that we must acknowledge,” DiCaprio said. “It’s my hope that this grant will help Oceana continue the tremendous work that they do daily on behalf of our oceans.”

Spread over a three-year period, the $3 million from the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation is the first marine conservation grant made following the foundation’s 11th Hour Charity Auction hosted at Christie’s last year. The grant to Oceana will support the organization’s work, from the south of Chile to the north of
Alaska, to preserve ecologically important ocean areas and Oceana’s campaigns, including the campaign to ban drift gillnets off California, in order to protect
dolphins, whales, turtles and other marine animals from being caught and killed as “bycatch.”

Gillnets targeting swordfish and thresher sharks are set off of Southern California and are typically a mile-long in diameter. This indiscriminate gear catches and kills large numbers of non-targeted marine animals including sperm whales, gray whales, dolphins, sharks, sea turtles, elephant seals, and sea lions. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Oceana recently received hundreds of photos of animals caught and killed by this destructive gear.

“We are incredibly grateful to our friends at Christie’s who made last year’s 11th Hour Auction for the foundation such a success, they made this grant to Oceana possible,” said Justin Winters, Executive Director of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. “We are excited to support Oceana’s efforts to win real policy change and protection for vital habitats and species throughout the Pacific and Arctic oceans.”

“Christie's is proud to support both the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation and Oceana in their fundamental work to make our planet a better place” said Steven Murphy, Chief Executive Office of Christie’s. “It was an honor for Christie’s to host the Foundation’s 11th Hour Charity Auction and, as we were delighted with the result achieved, so we are thrilled that it could facilitate this grant to Oceana, funding such important endeavors to preserve our oceans.”

11th
Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards (2005) (TV) ....
Himself - Nominee: Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor
in a Leading Role/Outstanding Performance by a Cast of a
Motion Picture/Co-presenter: Film Clip from "The
Aviator"

His
first Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations came for the
difficult role of Arnie in 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape'
(1993). Equally challenging parts were a drug-troubled Jim
Carroll in 'The Basketball Diaries' (1995), the tormented
homosexual poet Rimbaud in 'Total Eclipse' (1995) and the male
lead in a very updated 'Romeo +
Juliet' (1996). True
superstardom came to DiCaprio playing Jack Dawson in 'Titanic'
in 1997.

Dreams
do not come true to all who have such lofty ambitions, and in
an industry riddled with rejection, the actor says that his
father was a great influences during his formative years.
"I remember the casting session that I had where I was a
break dancer, having this punk hair cut. They rejected me and
I became really disillusioned with the business and said well
this is what it's all about, and I haven't even got in to read
a line.